The Deep End

Leo Fender has long been recognized as a wizard of musical technology whose name became a brand, and whose gear powered countless bands. Fender most truly innovated in creating the Precision Bass, which in rock ’n’ roll settings quickly supplanted the upright bass. Among innumerable players with whom the “P bass” found favor were legendary studio musicians Carol Kaye and James Jamerson.

The Fullerton, California, entrepreneur was key to the electric guitar’s birth. In the early `50s he had a hit with the Telecaster, a solid-body six-string able to stand out in a crowded dance hall. Now Fender was pondering how to enable musicians in electrified combos to achieve what acoustic bass players historically had done for unamplified bands: deliver a compelling layer of rhythm.

The upright bass—most players used a 3/4-sized version more than six feet tall—was difficult to play, demanding not only strength to hold down and pluck 1/8”-thick strings, but also musical training or at least strong intuition. A musician had to know just where on the long fretless fingerboard to put a fingertip and produce the correct note. The big wooden box, sometimes called “the doghouse” for its bulk, was all but essential to most music because it knitted together the sound. On a standard 88-key piano there are 19 keys—nearly two octaves—below the lowest E note on a standard guitar. The guitar bottoms out at 82 hertz. However, humans can hear down to about 20 hertz. At these sonic depths, notes solidify into percussive thumps that give music power. A mezzo-soprano singing an aria won’t get folks dancing, but a bass’s simple, deep, repetitive rhythm will.

In modern bands, the upright bass was getting lost